Page 157 of Restless Hawke
“We won’t.”
I press my hands to his chest. “I really wish you would stop making those types of promises to me.”
He grins. “I thought youlikedmy promises.”
“Oh,thosekind, I definitely do.” I push up onto my toes to kiss him. “And you can make me one when we get home, but I have to run to my class.” I pull my head back from his. “Bishop?”
She turns toward her name and sees me wave her over. After issuing a final chastisement to Kennedy and Cass, she then jogs to where we wait. “You ready to go?”
I nod, and Coen steps back reluctantly, letting me open the car door and slide inside.
Bishop takes the passenger seat and then rolls down her window to yell out at him, “Hey, Coen?”
He turns back. “What?”
“Seriously, straight to the hotel with Kennedy and Cass until somebody is on you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…”
He waves a dismissive hand, but I know he’s not going to fight the order.
None of us will.
Not until things are resolved, which is starting to feel more and more like it might be never.
Bishop rolls up her window, and I start the car and pull away from the curb.
She eyes me as we head toward the gym and Pilates studio. “Are you okay today? You seem a little off.”
I nod. “I am. Just have a lot on my mind.”
“Your dad?”
It isn’t a hard guess to make, considering Satriano is at the forefront ofeveryHawke mind and has been for months. The more time passes, the harder it becomes to forget his veiled threats or all the plans he had that I know he won’t just abandon.
I glance over at Bishop and nod before returning my attention to the street. “I just feel so guilty, I guess, for completely cutting him out.”
“Sometimes you have to cut away the cancer, if you want the healthy cells to survive, right?”
“Are you comparing my father to a cancer?”
She shrugs. “Isn’t that what he is to you? You thought he was totally benign, right? And toyou, he was. But to the rest of us, he has grown like an out-of-control tumor that one day will snuff us out.”
Not an analogy I’ve ever considered.
But it makes more sense than I’d ever really like to admit.
“Jesus, I guess he is…”
“You would tell us, right? If he contacted you?”
The light turns red in front of us, and I slam on the brakes and turn to her. “Of course I would. Why would you even ask me that?”
She holds up her hands defensively. “Because it’s my job to protect the Hawkes, and that includes you now.”
For that split second, I thought she was accusing me of something. That the trust and friendship I believed we had built over the last several months was all an act so she could keep an eye on me the same way I did Coen.
But there’s no deception in her words.
